


War Technicalities

by Blackened_Lips



Category: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Planet of the Apes Movies (2011 2014), Rise of the Planet of the Apes (Movies), War of the Planet of the Apes (2017)
Genre: Apes & Monkeys, F/M, Immunity, Interspecies Relationship(s), Interspecies Romance, Interspecies Sex, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Mild Sexual Content, Romance, Sipian Flu, mild rape
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-01
Updated: 2018-04-23
Packaged: 2018-12-22 12:23:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 15
Words: 18,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11967324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blackened_Lips/pseuds/Blackened_Lips
Summary: Caesar x Human!OCThey say "curiosity killed the cat," but do they mention how the cat found a friend and a strange love for him in that friendship, and then how she hid that love with a horrific mistake, even before war made the situation worse?I didn't think so.Thus, following this curious cat, Haley Hunsiker, might be wise, just so you know curiosity's consequences.





	1. The Neighbor's Monster

**Author's Note:**

> I have the story on Wattpad and FFN, but I'm going to review each chapter as I upload them here, so yeah... Oh, and my chapters used to be "drabble chapters" but you'll see them getting longer and longer.

Haley gazed up at her neighbor's house with curious and beady young eyes, studying the attic's dormer window from her room's balcony, looking for some faint sign of life. Her twin sister once came home from school, crying waterfalls of tears while screaming about seeing a monster in the window, but Haley had the strangest feeling that she didn't see a monster at all, and this suspicion only grew each time she saw her sister crying at the sight of things like baby frogs or harmless lizards. _No_ , she told herself, her eyes narrowing up at the circular window, _whatever her sister saw wasn't a monste_ r; after all, her father once said that monsters aren't real.

Still, weeks passed with her sitting in silence on the balcony for more than an hour every night before something finally happened and she spotted it. At first, it was brief. What she saw was only a silhouette covered in fur, swinging pass the window and making her gasp in shock. Then, the figure dropped and turned towards her. It looked as if it was seeing her for the first time, even after all those nights it had the chance. Whatever it was, it seemed afraid when it slowly inched closer to the window, its posture hunched over in a cower and its steps swaying back and forth, as though it was taking rhythmic steps backward. Only once it peeked through the window and it's face was lit up by the moonlight did its strange walk make sense to the young girl - he wasn't scared or hesitant. There, staring back at her with bright and curious green eyes, so similar to her brown ones, stood a young ape, who's strange strides was nothing more than natural for his kind. In an instant, Haley's breath caught in her throat, her jaw slacking and her eyes widening, but not in horror or disgust; rather, she gaped in awe and disbelief. For a moment, she didn't even notice the chilly night breeze as it carried her straight blonde hair with it. Shakily, she rose a single arm and glanced behind her to make sure no one was coming upstairs to her room. She found the door was as closed and empty as always, so she gave a little wave. It was to her utter bewilderment when the ape gibbered excitedly behind the glass and waved back.


	2. Wednesdays

"Send my love to Emily's parents! And be careful!"

"Will do!"

Haley's bare feet clapped vigorously against the ground as she ran out of the house, the same as every other Wednesday for the past year - that is, when she was able. For the entire morning until the clock struck twelve, her visit to her friend's house has been what she's been looking forward to; if only she could tell her father that Emily wasn't the friend she's been visiting all this time. After how he reacted when Caesar showed up at their house, having had no idea that the chimp showed up to play with his daughter, Haley knew it was better to keep it a secret. She knew he'd have Caesar put in a zoo, if not somewhere worse. She might still be an uneducated child, no more than eight years old, but she knew her father well enough. 

"Back again, are you?" Will chuckled down at the young girl in his doorway while she took the time to catch her breath, and he only got a chipper nod in return, "He's upstairs."

Immediately, she rushed pass her neighbor and up the spiral staircase to the entrance of the attic, lugging her backpack with her all the way, and just like every other day, Caesar lit up like a child on Christmas when he saw her head pop out through the floor. Swooping down from the window, he swung from one joist in the roof to the other with his strong arms before he plopped down in front of her and carefully motioned his hands in front of him, repeating the words he memorized in the past five years. Haley was always impressed by his advanced memory - she wished she could have it, too.

"It's good to see you, too," Haley grinned, a couple of missing teeth interrupting her otherwise perfect smile, "but I don't..."

Releasing a frustrated gibber, he motioned to her backpack.

"Oh! You were asking what I brought today?" She laughed, proud that she was able to figure out the sign that Will hasn't taught her yet. After, she quickly shrugged her bag from her shoulders and unzipped it in a rush, "Dad bought a lot of new toys on his flight to Japan last week; I'm sure you'll love these." With a slight skip in her step, Haley shuffled over to the center of the room and tossed the contents of her bag onto the floor before she sat down, Caesar already seated opposite her, as if routine. Like always, Caesar's eyes sparkled with curiosity as he picked up and studied the many new, strange trinkets that were splayed out in front of him, and Haley just enjoyed thirty minutes of watching him before she begun to explain how they all worked.

Back then, she couldn't express the satisfaction she felt from simply bringing a bit of the outside world to his small reality.


	3. Humanity's Downfall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't ever feel hesitant about commenting or leaving those lovely kudos -- they all make my day.

Haley gasped and heaved for air, her lungs, arms, and legs burning with a pleasant but painful ache. Her blood turned into fire as it rushed through her veins and all the way through her pounding heart. Despite it all, she desperately curled her bruised and scraped hands around the branch above her head. With bared teeth and a faint 11-year-old whimper, she tried to pull herself back into the tree, swaying her tired legs back and forth through the air to see if she still had enough momentum to flip herself onto the branch, but alas, her weak and buttery fingers finally gave away. The ominously tall and slender trees ahead blurred into patches of bright sunlight that pierced through clouds of green leaves with enchanting rays of light and blinded reality from her eyes. Still, it didn't stop her heart from racing as she, like a stone, plummeted towards the ground, her hair whipping violently against her face. It felt as if pure thunder boomed in her chest as seconds ticked by. Yet, not a single yelp or scream escaped her and her eyes simply fell shut in anticipation to death. It was a strange feeling - almost as if she was prepared for whatever awaits someone who meets their inevitable stop - but it wasn't really an unexpected feeling either. But, death never came anyway.

Without the crack of a branch or the rustle of a leaf to warn Haley, something suddenly crashed into her side and jerked her from her fall with such impact that it stole the last of her breath away. The harsh impact felt so entirely different compared to the gentle arm of the perpetrator, which wrapped around her waist. The touch – powerful, warm, and soft – was familiar enough that, as soon as her mind processed her rescue, a sheepish laugh escaped her. The fact that she was unwillingly swung through the trees and back in the direction of the picnic area didn't seem to matter. "I almost made it this time!" She tried insisting, straining her neck to gaze up at Caesar, but he just released a disapproving huff at her words and tightened his strong arm around her, his hands not free to sign how she still had a long way to go.

"Slipped again?" Caroline chuckled at Haley, watching the two 'children' drop back down onto the forest floor from where she was comfortably resting against Will's side.

"Hay, I got half way this time!" She tried insisting again, but this time all she got was a small laugh from Will, too, forcing her cheeks to puff in a pout and her face to redden, "I managed to swing through ten trees!"

That finally made their amused grins fall, Caroline actually looking impressed by the girl's improvement over the past year. However, it only lasted for a while and quickly got interrupted by a few grumbles and grunts from Caesar. Only after four short years of knowing each other, Caesar has already grown much larger than the small chimpanzee Haley waved at from her balcony; Caesar's shoulders have grown broad and muscular, his face has grown serious and worldly, and his intelligence improved drastically, along with his posture and his height – a gift he was given when he was born as an ape. It was all to the displeasure of Haley, because, as his size grew increasingly larger and taller than hers, so did his protective nature.

"Oh, I'm fine, Caesar." She attempted to calm him down while Will and Caroline got ready to pack everything up so they could return home. "See?" She continued and motioned up and down her unscathed body to emphasize her point, but only to see her scratched and blistering fingertips and to hide them behind her back with a guilty smile, "Mostly unharmed."

Naturally, she wasn't very convincing and it only allowed him to hoot, frustrated, before he motioned,  _"You're not ape: it's dangerous."_

"Yes, so you've said." She grumbled, "But if I can't play with you in the attic anymore, seeing as you spend all your time here, is it really so wrong to adjust so I can be with you? You may be ape, but you're still my friend – my only friend, remember?"

Immediately, his demeanor changed, his face falling into what seemed nothing less than sympathy, but before he had a real chance of responding, Will announced it was time to leave. Maybe, just maybe, things would have ended so much better if they actually finished their conversation – then, he might’ve known that she does care for him a lot and she didn’t mean for it all to end so soon.


	4. Wants and Should Wants

Horror, terror, fear, inner conflict, pain, confusion – none of those words could explain or describe on their own how Haley felt at that exact moment. Her heart hang heavy in her chest, a dry lump scratched painfully in her throat, her feet anchored themselves deep into the street, and her breathing ceased against her will. 'This can't be happening.' She told herself, but reality was a cruel teacher and a merciless knife to her soul. Everyone around her was blurred and obsolete while she was unwillingly forced to make a decision that made her entire core ache for solace. Haley hoped, pleaded, and prayed that it was nothing but a nightmare, for her sisters' screams for their father's health to be nothing more than some trick of the mind, but as the sight of crimson water dripping from her best friend's lips wormed its way into her vision without her permission, she knew even her sick mind couldn't have dreamed up such a revolting thing.

Torn between two unrealistic choices, Haley stood between her bleeding father, who was revealed to be no more than a mortal man as he clutched his de-fingered hand to his chest with tears soaking his face, and Caesar, an ape who seemed in terror of his own actions as he hugged his shaking and infant-minded grandfather close. As he sat there, scared, with his pleading green eyes boring into Haley's and studying her without hope for everything but the chance that she knew it was an accident. But all he could see was fear radiating off of her. She was sure the ape thought her fear was directed towards him - and she was right - but he couldn't have been more wrong. The fear Haley felt was cutting inward - Haley feared the fact that she even dared to hesitate about whom she should console. She wasn't an ape - Caesar has taken it upon himself to mention this on several occasions - she was a human, and her father and twin sister were her family. Will and his family wasn't - so how could she think to go to them? What was that saying - "blood is thicker than water?"

And so, torn between what she wanted and what she should want, and with the latter hanging more heavy on her conscience, she closed her eyes and turned away from her friend. She couldn't bare to see how he might be looking at her. In that one, simple action, it felt as if her heart had been physically torn, but she forced her heavy legs forward and moved to her father's side, shakily helping him to the ambulance when it finally arrived. Alice, Haley's sister, followed close behind while her back remained turned to the solemn face of the one person - _ape_   - that she didn't want to lose. If Haley had known that, by the time she returned home, Caesar would be locked away somewhere that she'd never be able to see him again and apologize, even if Will tried to tell her otherwise, she might have chosen a different path.

She would have walked the path that she actually wanted to follow.

Truly, reality is a cruel teacher, but regret is so much worse.


	5. Where's My Goldfish?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't forget to leave those adorable comments I love so much! ^^

Haley's father was eventually released from the hospital with his hand patched up with great care and skill, but unfortunately, along with him being released, so was the truth about her visits with "Emily" every Wednesday, and her father was furious. As a result, Haley sat alone atop her balcony yet again, staring at her neighbor's attic dormer in search of some type of movement that she knew would never come. Just like the previous day, her bedroom door was locked, just to ensure she doesn't try to sneak from the house again. Over the course of the past few weeks, Haley had attempted a jailbreak enough times that her personal warden knew better. Nevertheless, she was determined to keep trying - even now. She knew that she'd never be able to visit Caesar as long as he remained where he was, not with how young she was and how insignificant she would seem to the adults holding him - not that her father would have allowed her to visit anyway - and that was not a pill she was willing to swallow. Thus, she had to do something drastic or get someone else to help her, to help him. One could say she was simply trying to right her wrong or eliminate her guilt, but Haley would confidently sock him or her in the face in return. Sure she felt guilty, but that was because she truly did miss her friend. It wasn't about clearing her conscience. 

Glancing back towards her bedroom door,  Haley made sure no one was coming before she swallowed the bile of anxiety in her throat. Only silence was watching her. Carefully, she moved closer to the balcony's railing and pushed herself on top of it, never daring to gaze down towards the ground below. She paused. Muir Woods, known for its large plot of coast redwood, has really tall trees - the average height was more than 200 hundred feet - so Haley was used to jumping from terrifying heights when she practiced her swing. But this was different. Maybe it was actually the fact that the ground was closer, now, and the fact that she could see the rocks that will cut through her skin and break her scull that she was so scared. Or maybe she was afraid because Caesar wasn't there anymore - he won't be able to save her if she screwed up this time. Haley took a deep breath to calm and waited until her tense body relaxed before she finally, without a second's more hesitance, leaped forward and into the air like an eagle. Time slowed as she soared, traveling far, but eventually, she latched onto the tree branch besides her balcony with all the might she could muster. Her own dead weight nearly made her slip from where she hung, but after clawing at the bark with her nails, she managed to get a stable hold, despite how weak her body had become over the last few weeks of sitting still. "Come on, Haley," She whispered to urge herself on, "use your shoulders, kick your legs," she chanted, shifting her aim on the tree next to her, and followed the simple steps she's been taught, "swing, and let go—"

With a faint yelp and waving limbs, she swung herself to a lower branch on the next tree, but alas, the trees in her neighborhood were nothing like the redwood she's gotten so used to. Haley's sweaty palms slid on the slick bark like soap on tiles and her body crashed against the tree trunk with a loud thud. She was lucky that her legs were first and her face was spared, even if she'd disagree. She hissed as splinters of wood dug into her scraped knees, but then quickly bit her lip and chocked back her crave to cry for comfort. Not even noticing her own limp with adrenaline rushed through her tiny body, Haley climbed the rest of the way down the tree and ran to Will's house. Still, it was all for naught when she discovered no one was home.

Fortunately, Haley knew the name of the place where Will worked and didn't waste time before she went to look for it. Clever as always, she told the first person she could find that her parents work at Gen-Sys and that she was lost, and the lady was more than happy to help. Haley's mother had told her that talking to strangers was dangerous, but Haley was desperate enough that it felt worth it. Though, this didn't help when she finally reached the large and towering company, because the uptight "pencil necks," as her dad called them, would know better. So she did what she could: she ran.

"Is that a kid?"

"Wait, you can't go in there!"

"Stop! Get back here!"

Like a slippery snake, Haley aimlessly sped through Gen-sys to find Will, her small body and innocent face coming in handy more times than she cared to count and too many times to remember a few years in the future. It felt like forever before white lab coats became more frequent around her, but after all the times she's seen one lying around Will's house, she knew what it meant. Soon, she finally heard his voice and paused in her steps, despite the crowd of scientists who were still chasing after her.

"It's a virus; we don't know the human-related effects."

Again, Haley jumped out of the corner that people were trying to lead her into and followed the argument that tickled her ears, but when she got close enough to see the lab that was her destination, she promptly stopped yet again and physically glided on the shimmering marble floors as a result. A nauseating chill traveled down Haley's spine the moment the sight burned itself into her memory, and she felt her body run cold. Even when hands latched onto her shoulders, she remained petrified with horror.

"No more tests." Will announced, but as he rolled the foldable trolley around the corner, commandeering the unconscious ape that was inhumanely tossed on top of it by another scientist, the sight of the young girl was revealed to him and he froze. Her hair looked even more disheveled than the Chimpanzees' around him, but that wasn't enough to disguise who she was. "Haley!? What are you doing here!?" He gasped, watching her catch her breath - like always.

"I…" She croaked in some attempt to explain herself, but instead, her words went lost as her gaze wandered to the cages next to her and distracted her. "I wanted to—" She tried again, but this time cut herself short with a childish gulp when her eyes fell on a nasty ape, his scarred face scowling at her and his one milky eye boring into her soul. Something about the ape made the hairs on her neck rise. Just like Caesar, the stare he gave was definitely not one of an unintelligent creature, but he appeared more animalistic that any other ape in the room. Again, she gulped, wondering why he was glowering at her - _what had she done?_ Whoever or whatever the ape was, Haley could see his body was weak an tired - no doubt, thanks to the lab - but it wasn't her fault!

"What's this?" Jacobs interrupted finally, glaring at the crowd of scientists around her, "There can't be kids in here!" Jacobs looked older than Will, but unlike the wise eyes one would have expected from the more experienced man, his eyes were cold and empty. Haley already didn't like him.

"I'll take her home." Will said quickly and rolled the ape to the side of the room before he shooed the team to their positions and motioned Haley to the door. Unfortunately, it was only for her to quickly skid out of reach.

"B-But I want to help get Caesar out!" She yelled, her face crunched up with such determination that it was almost possible to forget how childish and oblivious her statement was from reality - _almost_. For a moment, Will was reminded of a child's face when parents tell him or her that they set the goldfish free. That is, until he saw her brown eyes moving to the ape on the foldable trolley behind him, something he realized a kid her age should never see... just like everything else in the lab, especially after her friendship with Caesar. What he didn't know was that she already had ample time to study her surroundings and to read the ape's tag, 'Cornelia.'

She didn't have time to think about what she saw or about Will's conversation with his boss, however, as she was led from the lab against her will and taken back home. She continuously protested and insisted that she can help to get Caesar back, but Will's eyes only lit up with an idea when she mentioned that she has quarters saved up that he can use to "bail Caesar out." What she said gave him a plan – a desperate plan, all things considered, but an plan none the less.

But both of them forgot the subject entirely and felt relieved when her father ended up being too angry with her to press charges against Will. That relief, of course, quickly changed for Haley when her father had security bars installed across the entire balcony door and pretty much put Haley under house arrest. Never before has she been more annoyed by the fact that she was home-schooled, because now she had no reason to leave at all - just like Caesar, she was trapped in her own tiny cell.


	6. Two Down

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't forget to leave those adorkable comments I love so much! ^^

Haley sat in the darkness of her room with her knees pulled tightly against her chest and duvets wrapped around her twelve-year-old body like a cocoon. The thick material covered her in a suffocating heat, sweaty hair sticking to her forehead in noodle-like ropes of blonde locks, but she didn't budge to escape the warmth – she sat there, unmoving, like a statue.

It's been a week since apes from every resort, zoo, company, and cage stampeded through the city and to the forest in calculated groups, and Haley hasn't left her room since; in a way, she couldn't have, even if she wanted to. She barely had the chance to glimpse at the apes in the trees through the bars on her balcony and barely reached the front door in her rush to slip outside the house before her father acted and barricaded the exit with his own body. Since then, he kept the windows locked and made sure to take precautions on the front door, making it impossible for her to open it, even from the inside. In return, she refused to leave her room, acting like the child she was. _Maybe_ , she wondered, _if her mother was there, the woman would have understood and allowed Haley to go see her only friend_ , but she wasn't; her mother had her own, new family to take care of and cuddle after the scare on the Golden Gate Bridge. Even when Haley’s father announced that he had to leave to go fly another bunch of people to some foreign land, she didn't move, nor graced him with a goodbye, or anything else.

Therefore, Haley gazed out of the glass doors to her balcony with lament eyes, and through a single gap in between the security bars and the decorative holes of the railing, she could see her father placing his suitcases in the trunk of his car.

"Haley?" Alice called carefully, poking her head into the room, "The babysitter is here."

Haley didn't say anything; she kept silent as she watched her father drive away in the tiny glimpses she was able to see, almost like the apes she had seen swinging through the trees a week ago, before helicopters and hunts were sent after them. Haley couldn’t be sure if Caesar was still alive, but she had hope.

"Haley?" Her twin tried again, but interrupted herself with a sudden, nasty sneeze, finally compelling her sister to glance at her with worry. "I think I caught what dad has." She explained and chuckled sheepishly at Haley, but only to see her look away again, resting her cheek back on her knee, "Well… alright then. Sorry for bothering you."

Hearing the door close next to her, Haley sighed, her heart weighing even heavier with guilt, but she didn't call after her sister. Instead, she finally wormed out of her nest of blankets and slid her feet onto the floor beside her bed, the cool surface pleasantly tickling the bare soles like the cool air did the rest of her skin. With a slight wobble in her step thanks to refusing to eat a few times, she shuffled over to her desk and begun to search through her drawers and piles of picture books. It took her at least ten minutes to find what she was looking for and before a loud rip sounded across her bedroom. Using the tape she borrowed from her sister's room a few years ago, she stuck the picture to her wall, grateful that her father won't be there for a while to see it, get mad, and rip it off.

And so, she climbed back onto her bed and stood on top of it, swaying slightly on the springs inside of the mattress, and used her new height to jump to the ceiling with a small growl. With hands more desperate than ever, she grasped the wooden joist in the roof tightly, pulling her tiny body up and letting herself back down a few times before she swung to the next one, forcing her young arms to keep moving. "Use your shoulders, kick your legs, swing forward, and let go." She chanted like so many times before, all the while glancing towards the picture of the chimpanzee on her wall, as if hoping he will suddenly turn into Caesar and tell her if she's doing it correctly or not.

 _Maybe one day she will meet her friend again?_ In the many days following, where she repeated this taxing routine, she still wondered the same thing, again and again, fruitlessly.

 


	7. Experienced Immune System

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Don't forget to leave those adorable comments I love so much! ^^

The dark hallway seemed like the path to hell as Haley gaze down at the telephone halfway to the end of it, the thing looking like the devil himself while she stared, its presence ghastly and wicked. The pops of guns and screeching of tires outside seemed to go unnoticed by her underneath her unwavering focus and overwhelming fear. The entire city seemed to have spun out of whack; people of every culture and religion labeled it as the end times and begun stocking up for survival, even if it meant breaking into stores and shopping malls wherever they went, while others screamed that it was ‘god’s divine punishment’ or just killed anyone who showed symptoms to the Simian Flu or got near someone who did. People like Haley, however, hid in their homes in fear of being killed or harmed in the crossfire.

Finally, Haley forced herself to reach for the intimidating phone against her will, knowing she had no other choice. Her bloody fingers shook fiercely as she picked it up, the plastic rattling softly in her hand, and smeared its black surface in a thin layer of crimson, but, already grown used to the sickening color, she continued with pressing the stained, glowing numbers in a sequence she's memorized by now and pressed the device to her ear. But alas, the result stayed the same. "This is Douglas Hunsiker; I am unable to come to the phone right now," Her father's familiar voice sounded in her ear, "but leave a message after the beep if it's urgent – Beep."

"Daddy?" Haley whimpered, sniveling softly as she collapsed against beside cabinet, "I-It's Haley," she paused, "again. Please call back when you get this, because Alice… she's…" her voice trailed off into a few dreary sniffs, roughly wiping her red and puffy eyes, "she's not feeling too good. I think she's going to…" For a few minutes, Haley just listened to the silence on the other side and to the beeping when the limited time for her message was reached, but inevitably, she placed the phone back onto its rest above her head and stiffly rose back to her feet. Deep down, she knew her father was already dead, but she secretly hoped that he would answer the phone, just so she could pretend that Alice, too, will be alright. Sullenly, she made her way back down the hallway and stepped, unbothered, over the corpse of a young woman, her babysitter, that was splayed across the floor beside her, no longer even glancing to its bloody fingers tips and lips with childish curiosity.

By now, Haley knew it didn't help Alice's condition, but still she grabbed the Nyquil from the table on her way before she entered the bedroom, knowing that it would at least help her sleep. In the beginning, before the outbreak of the Simian Flu was announced, Haley might not have known the severity of Alice’s condition, but even then she knew something was peculiar about it, because she wasn’t growing ill. The day that Haley and her sister were born, the first didn't cry, nor move – she was as silent and still as death itself – and her parents nearly passed out from their state of panic, and even after she was healed and stayed in the hospital for the entire first year of her life, she grew older without a single day of not being sick, granting her a life away from anyone who wasn't clad in a blinding white lab coat and mask. There were times where she even resented her sister for always going unbothered by the diseases that were trying to kill her, but now the roles were reversed, and she prayed that she could be sick instead.

"Haley?" She heard the familiar, faint, croaking whisper as she slipped inside the room and sent her sister a ghostly smile before she sat down beside the bed, placing the medicine on the bedside table before taking Alice's tiny hand into her blistered own, "Where's the babysitter?"

Haley hesitated, giving Alice's hand a reassuring squeeze, but ultimately lied through her teeth, "She went home to her family. How are you feeling?"

"Better." Alice chuckled weakly, "My legs don't hurt anymore."

Of course, Haley has heard enough about the flu to know that wasn't a good thing, but still she didn't dare to mention it. "That's good." She responded halfheartedly and moved to pick the medicine back up, but quickly halted from one simple question, her body freezing instantly.

"Why are you still unaffected?" Alice asked, almost frightening her sister with her unfeeling tone, "How are you still alright? How are you," she stopped with a chilling fit of coughs, her free hand quickly moving to cover her bloody lips.

"I… don't know." Haley sobbed, her calm and strong demeanor breaking in an instant, and held her sister's hand against her forehead with both of her own, squeezing her eyes shut in some pointless attempt to stop the tears, her cheeks already burning from the hot and salty liquid. "I don't know." She repeated over and over again, shaking her head hopelessly while she silently pleaded, prayed, beseeched, and begged for some type of answer to Alice’s question, but her despair was only amplified when she finally felt what she's been dreading for the last week: her sister's arm suddenly going limp in her grasp. "Sissy?" She breathed and hesitantly raised her head, her eyes growing wide in horror the moment they connected with an identical, unmoving, and unblinking pair. "Sissy!?" She cried and allowed her sister's hand to flop back onto the bed as she shot up, quickly reaching over and shaking Alice's unmoving body by her shoulders, "Wake up! Alice! Wake up! You can't—remember, Daddy will be mad when he comes back and you're not here!"

And yet, throughout her desperate screams and hopeless lies, she burned with rage. _It's their fault_ , she thought – yes, _all their fault_! Those animals took everything from her when they began to go against nature. They caused it all – all this death and destruction started with them – _ALL OF IT_! Without expecting anyone to ever answer her, she wondered when humans will finally realize that some boundaries should not be crossed, because now they even blame the ones who unwillingly participated in their ghastly experiments for something they created, themselves, in a lab somewhere. _'_

 _Please,'_ she begged again, _'can we just go back?'_

 


	8. Kidnapped At Nineteen

It's been eight years since the outbreak of the Simian Flu and it seemed as if things have begun to calm down. Wars have been fought, soldiers have died, and the population has dwindled significantly - everyone has suffered a loss and agreed that the violence had to end. And, as we know, Haley wasn't unaffected. It's been years since she left her home, nothing and no one left to keep her there, and since then, her only goal has been survival, which has gotten easier and easier with each passing year. Back when the Flu was still the world's largest threat, a casualty befell her city almost every week, whether it be by sickness of brutality, and with every passing life, it became easier for her to find fresh food, the competition growing less and less. Today, she barely sees another human every six months or more, giving her free reign to eat whatever she pleased from the broken-windowed stores and personal greenhouses, but unfortunately, meat, fruits, and vegetables don't last forever or grow throughout the year, so she needed to take precautions and teach herself how to find alternatives. Thus, every few days, she climbed down her nest atop one of the apartment buildings, the only place she was able to find asylum from the rampaging people at the time, and scampered away from the city.

Slowly, Haley took a breath from where she stood atop the shallow cliff, one hand tightly wound around the center of a bow while two fingers elegantly pinched the feathers of a homemade arrow and pulled the bow's string to her cheek with great force. With her back straight and chest puffed, the powerful muscles in her shoulders, arms, and stomach were tense and bulged, the fragile young body she once had long-since lost underneath her disheveled, nineteen-year-old figure. Unfortunately, redwood forests were dimly lit and dark, making it nearly impossible to spot the wildlife inside of it, not to mention that most of its furry creatures were nocturnal, but still she was able to hope. Below her, never so much as thinking of looking above its head, a Black-Tailed Deer foraged for its next tasty meal and remained ignorant to its observer. Taking another steady breath, careful not to make a sound, Haley paused with uncertainty of her aim before she finally let the string go, allowing the arrow to whip through the air with a blurring speed. The deer raised its head and it's ears perked up at the unsuspected sound, but it was too late – with a dull and ironically gentle jabbing sound, the deer fell to the mossy ground, birds screeching violently from above as they sped into the sky for safety.

Back when Haley finally realized the food was going to expire, she had set out to find something that would help her hunt, but she only ended up staring at the guns in stores with innocent, young, and fearful eyes for what felt like hours before she made her decision to focus on something a bit more... 'primitive'. Yet, it took her at least four years to teach herself how to hit a moving target with something as complicated as archery, and then another two years to master the technique. Even then, she waited until she was in dire need of food before she finally dared to go into Muir Woods, knowing exactly what, and who, claimed the property as their own. Though she knew who could be among them, she couldn’t bring herself to risk it.

Smiling proudly, Haley slid her bow and arrow onto her back with their quiver before she jumped from the cliff and into the trees in front of her, swinging like an ape from branch to branch without any trouble, and made her way to the dying deer before she jumped back onto the forest floor, the impact shooting a painful wave of electricity up her bare feet, forcing a groan pass her lips. Still, she quickly moved to the animal's side and repeated the same process she's done too many times, swiftly pulling a blade from the strap around her leg and sliding the sharp steel into the animal's neck, putting it out of its misery with one slick motion. However, just as she was about to pick the small deer up from the ground, a loud crack interrupted her, and almost immediately she had her bow and arrow aimed again. She whisked around to where the sound came from, but no one and nothing was there to see; nevertheless, she kept her guard up. Torturously slow, she shifted on her knee and looked around, her own breathing loud in her ears while she searched for the cause to the alarming sound, but the farther she turned and the more she saw, the more she seemed to prolong those last few degrees. High above her head and leering down at her from in the trees, they began to grab her attention one by one. First there was one, but the farther she looked, the more they became; one, two, three, four, five, fifteen, twenty – she counted. She grew terrified underneath their painted scowls, even their wet and sweaty fur aiding in her terror, but nonetheless, her arm slacked on the string of her bow as she gulped. Staring into their apish faces and eyes, she knew she wouldn't be able to attack, even if her intent was to protect herself, not after her personal experience with their kind, but when she saw no familiar face in between their dozens, she made a choice she knew was dangerous: she jumped to her feet and ran, slipping the bow and arrow back into their places. She heard one of them scream before the leaves rustled violently around her, the sound staying on her heels no matter how far she got. Closer and closer, they swung; it was only by luck that she soon reached another steep hill, compelling a grateful smile to her lips before she, once again, leapt into the air. She latched onto the branches and swung as fast as she could, but alas, something soon collided with her side, a powerful arm wrapping around her like a cage. For a moment, she thought she was reliving the memory of Caesar saving her from a deadly fall like he did so many times, but this theory shattered the very instant that it felt as if her ribs were being crushed from her  _savior's_  strength, making her grunt and writhe underneath the ape's hold – Caesar's nature was never so rough. Yet, she had a sinking feeling that he was one of the apes she was being taken to for trespassing on their property, but it was hard to be sure from all the thrashing and tossing she was forced to endure, the almost hairless chimp treating her as a discard-able sack of potatoes, which made it impossible to even glimpse at their signing… something Haley was still attempting to process.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I seriously love doing this. Whenever I don't have the strength to write new chapters, I get some of this done. It makes me feel so productive... even though I definitely aren't.


	9. I Am Dying

Haley could've sworn she heard the sickening pop of her shoulder dislocating when the ape holding her had finally tossed her to the hard ground – however, she was still quick to kick away from the apes and scrape her body through the mud to the point where she was close enough to their looming fortress to gape up at it and then attempt to dash as far as possible in the opposite direction – but now, as her wrists were tied above her head to a mossy and dead wooden pole like she was a prisoner, with her butt resting in unwelcomed mud and her only pair of pants soaking up water like a sponge, the adrenaline wore out of her system enough that the pounding in her shoulder made it quite clear that something was wrong – though, it wasn't urgent. Thus, as she waited for a supposed hunting party to return with their leader, the apes never realizing she was able to understand every gesture they made in their discussion, she decided there were more important things and grew nervous – she didn't want to see Caesar again, not with how their last encounter ended. She was deathly afraid, maybe even terrified, at the idea that when he sees her, he would turn his back her way, like she had done towards him. That was why she had been so scared to venture into the woods in the first place; she knew she'd run into him eventually. ' _Then again,'_  she wondered and gazed down at herself, ' _would he even recognize me?'_

Her bright blonde hair has grown all the way to her abdomen from their past rest on her shoulders, and has slowly been crystallized and dyed a nauseating brown from all the dirt and dried blood she unwittingly collected over time. Her skin was covered in hardened mud and hundreds of scratches and bruises that were aching to heal, easy to see thanks to the oversized shirt and sweatpants that struggled to cling to her shoulders and hips, the latter tied to her slim frame by a thick, braided rope that folded the material in odd and annoying places. Her previously bright and beady honey-colored eyes have become hard and cold, like a rusty shade of dirt to balance out with the layer of earth that already covered her face. The only thing that hasn't changed much about her was things that should have grown in her teenage years, but no, she remained like the curve-less and flat-chested kid Caesar knew way back when. Luckily, she's been too occupied with survival to really care – so why did she feel self-conscious now? She merely shook her head at the thought and shifted to make herself more comfortable in the puddle, which seemed pointless when a giant suddenly crashed onto the ground in front of her, making the Earth rumble and her butt shake back out of place. Stiffly, Haley gazed up at the stranger and felt her jaw slack into a gape the higher she looked. Standing right in front of her, his body nearly four times her size, stood a gorilla that was purely made of muscle and strength, his leathery face contorted into a ghastly scowl. "No, get back!" She screamed on instinct as the giant gorilla unexpectedly stepped towards her, pressing herself back against the wood to keep the distance between them, but as he (she assumed it was a 'he') reached over her head, she unwillingly begun to calm down.

"Get… back?" She tried again, seeming unsure, and watched his dark hands in dismay as he leaned to the pole behind her and banged his fists down on it a few times, forcing the wood to bury deep enough into the ground that he could pull the rope around her wrists up and slip her ties over the pole's top, freeing her without her even moving an inch. She dropped her hands onto her lap immediately and pulled the rope off of her wrists before massaging them to relieve the strain, all while keeping her shocked eyes on the ape that freed her. Shakily, she flattened her dominant hand and pressed the inside of her fingers to her lips before motioning the same hand his way gracefully.  _"Thank you."_  She signed discretely, not wanting the others to discover her little secret, and naturally, she had assumed that the apes couldn't understand human speech. She watched in confusion as the giant unexpectedly froze and stared at her in disbelief – and Luca, he just wondered why she kept her ability to understand sign language to herself – but any further thought from either of them was interrupted.

Suddenly, all the apes fell into a pleased uproar, some hooting while others gibbered and screeched, and when the gorilla finally stepped out of the way to join the others in their welcoming of the hunters, Haley's heart sank. He was older, taller, and more mature, his eyes darkened just like hers, if not more, but she recognized him instantly and paled at the sight. What broke her even worse was the fact that, even if she hoped for it, she saw no recognition in his bright green eyes when they met hers – not even a glimmer or flicker of familiarity. She could feel her body shaking with an odd sense of trepidation and it took grabbing the tiny patch of grass beside her for her body to settle.

At the sight of the young woman, however, Caesar had a very different feeling that flickered to life inside of him: anger and disappointment. Disappointment for a human finally invading their sanctuary, as he always dreaded one would, and anger for an ape bringing her there. Unlike what Haley saw, however, he did feel an odd sense of familiarity when he gazed into her dark brown eyes, his brows furrowing by that fact.

Haley watched as her old friend turned to the ape beside him, her gaze darkening at the mere sight of that specific ape. Unlike the other apes, his fur wasn't nearly as slick and strangely well-kept as the others'; fur was barely seen on his pale grey skin, dating him much older than the others, and his permanently-frowned face and natural underbite were completely nude. She couldn't help but note how much shorter the ape seemed to be than Caesar, but soon wondered if it was just the heights that both of them held themselves in. Just then, Haley looked around and realized something she, in a way, already knew, allowing her to gape in disbelief: all of them kept themselves low around her old friend…  _Caesar was their leader!_

_ "What's human doing in camp, Rocket?" _  She watched Caesar sign, him clearly looking a bit annoyed, and shifted her attention onto the ape, Rocket, next to him, almost like she was watching a tennis match and waited for his response. He hooted apologetically in response to his leader's unsuspecting annoyance, his chipped lips pulling back and unintentionally showing Haley his threatening canines before he signed,  _"Found her close and thought Caesar wanted to know, so brought her."_

"Hah!" Haley mocked without thinking, but didn't bother to stop when all the apes turned her way, knowing she can't exactly take it back – the best she could do was explain her reasons, "Brought me? You practically  _kidnapped_  me! My shoulder still hurts, and so do my ribs!" In any other circumstance, she would have felt a tug of amusement from their confused faces, but she knew their confusion didn't mean good things for her; luckily, the gorilla, still in front of her, took it upon himself to explain.  _"She knows sign language."_  He signed.

With that, all other subjects seemed to get dropped, Caesar's eyes narrowing as he begun to move her way – she knew it was strange, but oh, how she missed seeing that apish limp he had, it being one of the odd things she saw everywhere after he was taken out of her life. On that note, she quickly paled, remembering the fact that she didn't want Caesar to recognize her, despite how much that hurt too, and how getting too close to her could definitely shatter that hope. And so, she quickly ran her eyes over the towering, spiked walls around the village and found what she was looking for. Against her better judgment – that is, if she took the time to think it through – she suddenly shot to her feet and dashed towards the giant tree next to them, assuming that, just maybe, if she could reach it, she could swing from its branches and leap over the wall beside it towards safety. But alas, she didn't get far before the same blasted pair of arms wrapped around her and halted her escape – even though, this time she quickly felt the arms loosen around her once she stopped, compelling her to glance over her shoulder to the captor in shock.  _Was he actually paying attention to how she said he hurt her?_

"How many?"

With a cliff-like plummet, her thoughts were dropped into an endless void of pure, unadulterated dismay, her eyes shooting huge immediately. She could've sworn she heard her stiff neck creak as she turned her head back to Caesar, studying him with such intent that he felt impossibly exposed, all the way down to his soul.  _He couldn't have_ , she thought in disbelief, her legs and arms growing heavy and unmoving in their place, as if wanting to keep her there until she was certain she heard what she heard,  _did he speak!?_

"How many humans left?" He grunted in an attempt to question her again, his voice so gruff and deep that it made her flinch back into Rocket. Still, despite him repeating his words, she couldn't answer – she couldn't speak at all. From only her shock, her throat has turned dull, dry, and tight, as if a lump of lead had gotten stuck.  _He can speak_ , she admitted despite what her brain was telling her to believe,  _how…?_

Eventually, she noticed the crowd of his  _people_  was growing restless at her insolence for not answering his question immediately, forcing her back to her senses. "J-Just me." She croaked weakly and quickly cleared her throat to speak more clearly, "It's just me," she said again, "I haven't seen another human in over a year now."

_ "Human lies," _  she saw another ape interrupted with a screech, and cowered a bit when other apes echoed his exclamation, _“should follow to find others – make them leave."_

While Caesar gave the new party a conflicted look, as if he wanted to agree with him but couldn't, Haley took her chance to study the other and gasped immediately – just like Caesar, she recognized him instantly. His scarred face, blind eye, and leer made it impossible for her not to, even if she had only seen him once. Again, the ape somehow sent a shiver down her spine without even bothering to try. "I am not lying!" Haley protested pass her fear when she finally processed what Scar told the ape leader, seeming a bit hesitant despite her volume, "My family died many years ago, when I was still a child."

At that, Caesar gave her the same uncertain look he had given his follower before he attempted to limp towards her again – this time, no matter how much she suddenly thrashed in Rocker's still-binding arms, she couldn't avoid Caesar looming over her, and the moment he did, she gulped against her growing nerves – ‘ _please, don’t recognize me_.’

_ "Then how does human sign?"  _ He signed, as if testing her to see if the previous time was a fluke.

"My close friend's father once taught me." She hummed, technically still telling the truth, and lowered her head, "My friend could only sign."

_ "And them?" _

She paused, "The father died of the Simian Flue a few years after mine did. I went to see him once, but only to find him and his wife's corpses holding each other on the couch – only his son survived." She could feel her heart stop for a moment in dread when she realized her slip-up, her mouth growing dry.

"Survived –" He spoke with a furious growl that made her head shoot up in alarm, but strangely enough, she didn't feel panicked, "—so humans do lie."

"I… never said the son- that the son was human." She admitted with a hopeless and miserable breath, her legs suddenly going numb underneath the anxiety that burned through her body –  _so much for attempting to hide her identity_ , she thought,  _she just painted her name across her forehead herself_. It took a few minutes of eerie silence and her only staring into Caesar's eyes with sympathy and a silent plea for understanding before his frown faded into disbelief and she officially knew he realized who she was, the bright honey-colored flecks in her dark gaze unmistakable. At once, she dropped her head and bared her teeth in an attempt to bite back her tears, her body finally falling slack in Rocket's arms as guilt officially overwhelmed her, her shoulders shaking as she sobbed without a sound. "I'm sorry." She let slip pass her lips as the arms around her pulled back, their hands grasping her upper arms and guiding her down onto her knees, as if Rocket was suddenly afraid to touch her in her state. "I'm so sorry!" She only cried louder when she was let free, her hands quickly covering her eyes when salty tears spilled down her nose, cheeks, and chin and dripped into the puddle of mud by her knees, "I'm so sorry! My father," she sniffed and hiccupped, "I wanted to help you, but he – and when I heard you were gone – I am so sorry!"

She could hear what sounded like a shaky sigh of relief coming from Caesar, but only continued shaking with agonizing sobs. She couldn't see as he, too, sank down to his knees and placed his leathery hand behind her neck before he pressed his forehead roughly against hers, shutting his eyes in content, which only made her cries turn louder and morph into wails. Yet, he never let go. Way back then, when Haley turned away and left with her father, he had seen how she was unknowingly dragging her feet and gave her true choice away, so when he was gazing out of his charcoal-excuse of an attic window in his cell, he was imagining those times where they used to make funny faces to each other when she couldn't visit him – the entire time he was there, he missed his friend, and when he was forced to assume she had been killed by the virus like so many others, he was tormented by the assumption. "Welcome home." Caesar whispered to her, and watched with slight amusement as she jolted back in shock, her tears and sobs halting immediately –  _that's one way of calming her_ , he thought. Only then, however, did he finally look around to find many apes looking extremely uncomfortable with what had happened, glancing between each other for answers, and felt thankful that they couldn't hear him welcoming her to the village.

Haley, still struck with disbelief at his words while her heart pounded in her ears, watched as Caesar rose and turned to address apes, but before he even had the chance, Scar seemed to put some pieces together for himself, the fact that she knew Caesar somehow clicking something in his memory.  _"Human tried saving Caesar."_ He signed in quick and firm movements, not seeming too happy by his own words – words which startled every single ape, even Caesar, himself,  _"Came to Gen-Sys, asking to help Caesar."_

_ /  _ _ "I…" She croaked in some attempt to explain herself, but instead, her words were lost to her as her gaze wandered to the cages next to her. "I wanted to—" She tried again, but this time cut herself short with a childish gulp when her eyes fell on a nasty ape, his scarred face scowling at her and his one blind eye boring into her soul. _

_ "What's this?" Jacobs interrupted finally, glaring at the crowd of scientists around her, "There can't be kids in here!" _

_ "I'll take her home." Will said quickly and rolled the ape to the side of the room before he shooed the team to their positions and motioned Haley to the door. Unfortunately, it was only for her to quickly skid out of reach. _

_ "B-But I want to help get Caesar out!" She yelled, her face crunched up with such determination that it was almost possible to forget how oblivious her statement seems to any grownup, reminding Will for a moment of a child's face when parents tell him or her that they set the goldfish free.  _ _ / _

Haley felt oddly bashful when Caesar glanced her way to confirm the ape's statement, but still forced herself to nod through her embarrassment.  _"Human is ally,"_  She watched Caesar announce, her heart soaring at his words, and saw him exchange an agreeing look with a large orangutan, who stood, unmoving, next to the wall at the edge of the village,  _"and is the last human close – she'll stay here."_

Even Scar seemed to want to protest, despite him having given Caesar the leverage to  _voice_  his decision in the first place, but it didn't seem to matter as Caesar turned back to his old friend and helped her back to her feat, leading her away without an explanation. Confused, Haley still followed and merely glanced uncertainly to the troop of apes behind her as the two of them ascended the odd spiral around the tree and made their way to the tree house at its top. She only hesitated once they reach the doorway and Caesar motioned her inside – she didn't know why, but the sight of the entrance made her heart clench with a sense for impending doom. Only when she slipped inside and gazed upon the beautiful female ape, a young ape attached to her chest, did this ache amplify to the point where Haley was petrified against her will, her body running cold.

_ "Wife and son." _  Caesar signed the words with a delight that made the pain even worse,  _"This is—"_

"Cornelia." Haley cut him off with a single, strained breath, "I know; your father… he tried saving her."

To her luck, the horror and inner agony she felt was mistaken for shock as she was made to explain what she meant, but while she spoke, she reminded herself how happy she should be that Caesar found love and wondered:

_ Why does my heart hurt so much then? So much that the pain is worse than dying. Please, don't tell me that I... towards Caesar... _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't forget to comment! ^^ Seriously, your feedback is what keeps me on my butt and writing this, lol.


	10. I See You

Haley felt proud that she was able to give Caesar some consolation about what had happened to his father when the pandemic broke out and that society was too alarmed by it to arrest or persecute him for playing part in its creation. She was happy to tell him that he wasn't left to die in prison, but again, Haley felt herself biting harshly into her cheek and unintentionally drawing blood when she was stopped from moving to Caesar's side for comfort when Cornelia did so first, pressing her forehead against his like he had done to Haley minutes before. The beautiful ape reassured him after he had been petrified at the news of what his father tried to do for the apes in Gen-sys, and in a single moment, Haley felt as if she was farther away from Caesar than ever, just able to watch him being held by his new family. She felt her stomach lurch with the painful truth that they can't just go back to where they were. Only the feeling of eyes drilling into the side of her head snapped her back into reality, her own dreary expression coming to her attention. Quickly, she perked the corners of her lips into a forced and ghostly smile before sending the young ape, Blue Eyes, a reassuring look, able to see a flicker of worry in his bright blue eyes. It oddly flattered her to know he was concerned about whatever was worrying her. Despite how the obvious reason for her aches and jealous pangs pecked at her mind, Haley was glad that her old friend had a son, especially one that looks so much like him. The reason being that, when studying the child with his height so much closer to her's than Caesar, memories of her past with his father resurfaced quickly, of when they were kids.

But of course, even if those memories resurfaced, she followed him back down the tree and studied his grown frame discretely from behind, eventually flushing when she realized what she was doing before quickly looking away. She felt the need to tell herself that she was imagining her feelings and her unnatural thought, but the more she thought back to their times together, like when he taught her to swing from tree to tree, him catching and saving her life, the harder she could feel her heart pounding in her chest, forcing her to grasp her tattered shirt by her chest to try and get it to calm down. _Why now all of a sudden?_   _Was it because his demeanor was so much more mature_ , she wondered and raised her head to trail her rust-colored eyes over his broad, strong shoulders again, and then over his entire physique, to see if she was right. Maybe it was everything about him that suddenly coaxed this from her, she theorized, too, but it really didn't matter, because she knew it was wrong whichever way, and it couldn't possible last. Once she gets used to his new appearance, this attraction will fade, but something about the fact that she shamefully broke her stare when they reached the line of sight of other apes at the bottom of the path made her doubt it _._ Something about looking away forced her to realize it wasn't temporary, as if she'd be open about what she was feeling if it was something so trivial _. So it's not attraction then,_ she pondered slowly, though the dreaded answer came instantly: she really felt more for Caesar than she should - much more. She likes him.  _Oh Gods_ , she immediately thought in disbelief,  _she really was a corrupted child, wasn't she? He's an ape!_

Sighing to herself, for a moment feeling relieved that Caesar wasn't paying attention, she distracted herself with the village around her for the first time, ignoring the squelching of her feet in the mud and ignoring the heads that continued to turn her way grudgingly. Despite the faces almost morphing together thanks to their deep frowns of contortion, she attempted to memorize a few of them and tried to figure out what they were doing. Though, despite ignoring the distaste the apes showed, she made sure to hold herself lower, not wanting to disrespect their leader in front of them. Somehow, she knew they wouldn't take too kindly to it. Eventually, her eyes settled on a group of toddlers, if she could call them that - she wasn't sure- and stumbled a bit in her step as she gaped, seeing them huddled together like a primary class while the familiar orangutan patiently taught them, just like Will once taught Caesar. She surely realized it before, but now that she saw it for herself, she couldn't believe the intelligence the apes have developed - then again, as someone who grew up with Caesar until the "ape apocalypse" happened, she wasn't even sure what apes used to be like when she was a child. After all, she was never healthy enough to go to Zoos, so the apes that now surround her... they were the only ones she knew. She silently wondered if she'll even be able to see a chimpanzee in the light they used to live in. This thought quickly ceased when the orangutan looked her way, his unreadable face so different from the disdain around him, and she felt herself relax to a point of Zen when he nodded her way. It was as if his motion was silently reassuring her that everything will work itself out. Again she fell into thought. She wondered why his and Caesar's behavior make it seem as if the orangutan knew of her existence from the very start? 'C _aesar spoke about me_ ,' she theorized, but openly shook her head,  _'No, don't think like that; don't make yourself hope.'_

"Here." Caesar's gruff voice quickly interrupted her inner ramblings and made her head snap up into attention, only for her heart to swell with warmth when she saw him standing next to and holding open the leafy door of a disheveled old hut. Just like numerous other homes, this hut rested against the side of a steep hill with seemingly little effort - clearly, the structures were well built. And somehow, Haley already knew why they were there. As a result, she sent Caesar a look of utter shock before she carefully moved inside, her twinkling eyes studying the interior of the small house with awe, taking in the sight of moist wood and  the rope that was made from some type of dead plant, used to tie the pieces together. Large leaves rest atop the structure to keep out the rain, and although she could still see some water dripping through the roof, it was a better alternative to living without one for more years down the line, like she's being doing in the past. "I love it." Haley admitted with an honest chuckle before turning back to Caesar, who still stood comfortably in the doorway and gibbered in satisfaction with her response. She openly hesitated before she continued, "I'm glad you were able to find a life here, Caesar. I was worried."

 _"Haley will, too."_  He signed without hesitance, his face remained perfectly still and serious,  _"You're family."_

"That's nice." She forced a small chuckle - _yes, that's right, and family don't fall in love with family, Haley_ \- before she sent him an empathetic smile, hinting a teasing look, "And you found other family, too, didn't you? A father - never pegged you for a smooth oppingnator, or whatever my mom called her son."

'That's right,' she told herself, 'just be playful and this feeling will fade away so joy can become real - eventually.'

Caesar hooted an apish laugh and gave Haley a dismissive wave to insist she doesn't say another word, forcing her to giggle earnestly. "I should get some sleep." She suggested, motioning to the nest of leaves and twigs that already stood in the center of her new home, relieved to see Caesar nod in agreement. She didn't realize that he only agreed because she looked tired whenever she smiled, and him having no idea her reason was because the surface was as far as her smiles went, "Goodnight, Caesar."

 _"Goodnight."_  He signed before slipping back out of sight, finally allowing her façade of joy to break in an instant, her butt crashing down onto the nest behind her while her face fell, misery clear as it contorted on its own. She didn't want time alone to think about the trouble that just showed itself, but she was forced to sit there for what felt like forever while she caught the breath she didn't know she held. Her body silently shook like she ran miles in a single minute, but as soon as that familiar shiver overwhelmed her, she stopped and looked around. It was easy to spot his watchful gaze and familiar leering out of all the apes that could be seen passing her open doorway - Scar. But it was mostly because he was the only one just standing there, staring at her. She had no idea how long he had been studying her, but as sleep nagged at her, she really didn't care and nonchalantly just rose back to her feet, adjusted the door into place, and laid down, ready to snore for a few hours until morning comes. Maybe she'd have forgotten about her feelings by then.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't forget to comment! ^^ Seriously, your feedback is what keeps me on my butt and writing this, lol.


	11. Winter Nights

Haley hugged her knees tightly to her chest as she gazed down at the village from her spot atop of the watchtower, seeing everyone preparing for nightfall. It wasn't her post, but it was inside of the walls in which she was confined, and it was the farthest she could get from the chilly waterfall next to her hut. Her three weeks of living with the apes has flown by faster than she ever thought time could move, being so used to living alone and without a soul to talk to, and every day it felt as if nature was trying to weigh winter down even more harshly. The apes seemed unaffected by the frosty breeze and mud. Though, even she felt satisfying warmth whenever she saw apes huddling together at night, like they would freeze to death if they broke from each other. But her nude skin and skinny limbs shook violently at night when she was trying to fall sleep. None of the apes seemed to realize the fact that she would surely die of Hypothermia soon – at least, that is what it felt like to Haley as she hugged her legs even more tightly to herself, trying to thaw herself down. Only when she was startled to a small jump thanks to the wood creaking below her, was she convinced that she was still able to move, however stiffly.

She watched, justifying uncomfortable, as Koba appeared at the edge of the watchtower and climbed on top of it, but as soon as he saw she was there, he gibbered with dissatisfaction. Back when she arrived and he spoke up about her having tried to save Caesar, she had an inkling that maybe she was wrong about him, that he's just bad around humans and that she shouldn't judge him for his nasty appearance, but after that day, he's repeatedly spoken out against having her at the Village and glared at her nearly every single chance he got. She was pretty sure that it was only out of respect for Caesar that he didn't toss her over the side of the cliff, which was so different from the other apes, who did their best to try and honor their leader's wishes and accept her. She could feel another pair of eyes following her wherever she went, but after failing to catch whoever the ape was, she shrugged it off and assumed it was Koba, too. This is what made it doubly odd when Koba just huffed an annoyed puff of air and sat down next to her on the tower a few feet away. Discretely, she glanced to him a few times, shifting nervously where she sat, and attempted to figure out what he was doing there. She knew he wasn't there to take the post, because Rocket was assigned to it for the day, and he, being the brash but shockingly kind ape she discovered him to be, left with only one condition: for her to stay until he came back.

 _"Stop staring."_ Koba interrupted briskly, not even glancing her way as he signed, only lucky that she glanced his way in time to see it.

"I'm not." Haley denied with a scoff immediately and forced her eyes back onto the apes below and into her initial stare. That's when she froze, the truth dawning on her with an agonizing blow.

 _"One eye is enough to see."_  Koba pointed out with a furious gibber, but while Haley knew exactly what he was getting at, she remained determined to deny it, even if her gaze lingered on a singular figure in the distance. She's been watching him for a while without even realizing it – Koba clearly did, however.

"I don't know what you're talking about." She grumbled and ripped her eyes off of Caesar, "You're the one who's been staring at me ever since I got here."

 _"Caesar is ape."_  He simply continued, barely seen through the corner of her eye, and caused a weight of truth to crash down on her shoulders. Then again, it wasn't like she didn't know that.

"Alright already," Haley finally snapped and whisked around to scowl at him, her brown eyes resembling a fiery red in anger, "If you have a point, make it!"

 _"Human have no place here_." He signed with a faint growl, baring his yellow and stained canines at her, and finally graced her with his own stare – though, she would've preferred it if he kept his frightening gaze to himself,  _"No place beside Caesar left where human wants to be."_

Her blood boiled at his words. Her jaw clenched tightly at the fact that she knew he wasn't wrong, about the fact that she did want to stand next to Caesar as more than a friend, which wasn't possible anymore, "You're being ridicule—"

Luckily, before the argument could escalate any further, Rocket came to her aid and allowed her to flee the tower to escape Koba's observing eye and to return to her hut for another night of fighting herself to sleep, all while ignoring the feeling of eyes still trailing her every step. She couldn't believe he already discovered her feelings for his leader when it took her eight years to notice it for herself; the mere idea left a vile and persistent taste in her mouth. In fact, she could still taste it as she curled into her personal nest, pointlessly attempting to steal some heat from the dead plants. It took an hour before she finally begun to drift off into a much-needed sleep, but alas, just as the welcomed darkness set in, a heavy body suddenly dropped down at her door and shuffled inside behind her. Too tired and cold to move quickly, she wasn't able to jump away from the intruder in shock and could only turn herself around stiffly, her drooped eyes barely widening when she saw the giant orange figure looming over her, despite him sitting down. Staring into his small green eyes, him not making a single sound, it didn't take her long to recognize the feeling of him watching her so closely and realized who had been watching her for so long – him.  _But why?_

Cooing gently in the pendulous sack underneath his chin, Maurice reached down, hoisted her limp body out of the nest with her arms and legs dangling loosely around her. He laid himself down before he placed her down next to him and wrapped one of his long arms around her. Her body felt as if it moved on its own when she curled up against him like a cat, her figure immediately growing warmer – only as the warmth got sucked into her core did she realize that he must have been watching her because he knew she was freezing in the winter nights.

Through blurred eyes, she watched as Maurice signed next to her,  _"Don't mind Koba – he thinks feelings like love and hate are controllable, even those of the heart,"_  he held her closer, still feeling her body shake from the cold,  _"he wants to be able to believe his hate of humans is his choice, not something created by humans, themselves."_

Honestly, she couldn't bring herself to say anything, and so, she simply nodded into his long fur before slipping into her dreams. She wondered if he knew exactly how much she needed to hear that.

Since then, she slept next to Maurice every night. Turns out, he accepted her as soon as she showed up; he didn't have to try to abide by his king's wishes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember to comment! ^^ I'd love to read whatever you have to say!


	12. The Next Hunter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blah, blah, blah, blah, blach, blah, blah-blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.  
> Blah-blah.
> 
> -Can you figure out what song this is?

Haley's cold, bluish fingertips felt nothing as she pinched the silky feathers of her arrow next to her cheek and grasped the center of her bow a few inches ahead. She could only hope that she held both parts tight enough in her dead hands. Taking a shaky breath and ignoring the feeling of the chilly air burning the inside of her lungs, Haley pulled the tough string back and aimed into the distance beside her. At the tip of her arrow, the sight of the black bear turned blurry and shrunk as if it was running away, but Haley knew it was only an illusion. It was close. The black bear was right there, oblivious to her presence at the top of the hill where she stood, and in a direct line with death - just letting go of the string would be enough. But, for the third time that hour, she exhaled with a puff of white smoke and slumped her weapon down in front of her, letting it crash against her lower abdomen. Immediately, she heard Rocket screeching under his breath in front of her to protest to her actions, or lack thereof, which only made her roll her eyes. After living inside the giant fortress for more than a month, Haley was finally allowed to leave - Caesar actually took it upon himself to apologize for the apes taking so long to trust her enough. But Haley's joy was morphed into confusion when Rocket shoved her weapon into her arms and led her away, apparently just to make her kill the large black bear, who was still fishing, unbothered, in an unfamiliar river. Haley could still remember when the origin of the Simian Flu was released and Anvil, a military contractor that was owned by the same company that owned Gen-Sys Labs, got desperate enough to set flames to the lower part of Muir Woods to kill the apes. She was happy to see the forest regained its life over the coarse of the last eight years. But apparently now she had to kill some of that life herself.

"I can't do it, alright?" Haley groaned and pulled her gaze away from the unsuspecting target to give her ape 'friend' a conflicting look, "I just can't."

 _"Seen human do it."_  He pointed out pass a few frustrated hoots,  _"Before ape followed human and took human back to village."_

"Yeah, when you kidnapped me." Haley scoffed under her breath, but quickly shook her head, dismissing the subject, "And that isn't what I meant. I know I can kill it, but I have no reason to – I need a reason. Killing things is not something I can do for sport."

Quickly, Rocket grew silent, finally understanding the predicament Haley found herself in – that is, he thought he did, in some way. In reality, the problem had been that Rocket hastily assumed she realized the reason by now. Grunting softly, he nodded back to the village, compelling Haley's gaze to follow.  _"Apes hunt,"_  He signed in the corner of her eye while she watched from afar as the next group of apes got ready to search for food. Quickly, the cause for her and Rocket's outing dawned on Haley,  _"human better with bow and arrow and far attack."_

As boastful as might seem, Haley knew Rocket was right and that he wouldn't lie to her about something that diminishes his skill. So, while nibbling anxiously at the inside of her lip, she skipped pondering her choices and identified the motivation for what she must do. She repeated it a few times in her head before she was ready. Slowly and steadily, Haley took another breath and re-positioned her aim on the bear. As routine, she puffed out her chest and straightened her back underneath her tattered and filthy shirt, and, wasting no time at all, she let the string slip gracefully from her fingertips. The bear's roar vibrated across the woods as the arrow pierced its ribs, but only a moment later, it glimpsed Haley in between the trees and begun to charge, making Rocket, as well as a few observing apes by the village, screech in alarm. Haley, on the other hand, didn't move and forced herself to stay calm - she wanted the bear to turn towards her. Repeating her process, Haley blocked out the harsh sounds around her and aimed yet again, while also cursing herself for getting so rusty over the past few weeks. If she had practiced, she wouldn't have had to go through such drastic measures - she could have killed it in one shot. Again, an arrow whisked through the air at her command when the bear was closer, but, this time, the sharp weapon pierced what was necessary and sliced through the fragile surface of an eye. Cutting deep with the force behind it, the arrow buried into the soft tissues of the bear's brain. The bear didn't make a sound as it suddenly tripped and tumbled against the ground in loud crashes, until it halted and laid as still as a corpse should be. Haley's hair whipped high as a crowd of apes suddenly sped pass her towards the animal in order to carry its carcass back for food. Only Rocket stayed long enough to give her a proud pat on her shoulder, but unlike him and the others, Haley's curious mind was already distracted by the stream the bear once stood in. Absentminded, she slipped her bow and arrow back into their lonely holster for the first time in what felt like forever.

Skillfully, she crept pass the apes unnoticed and made her way to the shallow water, hesitating for a moment before she crouched down and dipped her hand into the clear liquid. She gasped, delighted, as the dirt on her skin quickly washed away, just in time before the cold water became too much and she needed to squeeze her hand under her armpit to reclaim some heat. Swiftly glancing back and waving to Rocket, Haley took care to signal she'll be right back, before she stared upstream for a minute and eventually decided to follow it all the way back to its origins. It took a significant length of time before she got there, but luckily she was fit enough to reach it without much trouble - and it would have been worth it either way.

Haley gaped up at the humongous waterfall that stood entirely separate from the one at the village, with large hills and thick patches of trees surrounding it and masking it from the outside world. It was gorgeous.

And it was perfect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember to comment! ;)  
> Also, feel free to go take a look at my YouTube Channel: Geeky Fanatic


	13. Hell's Beginning

"Maurice!" Haley called over the other apes when she saw the large orangutan making his way through the village, his movements tired and slow after his long day with the young apes. No surprise, he gladly halted at the sound of her voice and waited patiently as she jogged over to him, though his eyes immediately glossing over with worry when he saw her disheveled appearance. Since she killed the bear the week before, she's been joining every single hunt the apes went on, and although his heart swelled at the fact that the apes quickly warmed up to her after she begun to contribute to their lives, he couldn't help but worry as her state seemed to worsen every day. With her nude human flesh, scratches littered her body at the gentlest touch. Then against, she was in such a rush, it could have been that which left her in such disarray. "Do you know where Caesar is?" She interrupted his thoughts when she finally reached him, "I heard he's looking for me."

 _"_ _Going to see Caesar now."_  He responded simply and continued on, signaling for her to follow behind, which she happily did. After all, if one excludes the young blonde's occasional trips to the waterfall, time with Maurice was honestly the highlights of her day, so she'd welcome more time around him. It was because, of all the apes, he seemed to enjoy her company most of all – Caesar did, too, but he never seemed to sit still long enough to converse properly.

It didn't take long before they supposedly reached their destination at the top of the shallow hill and Haley took a moment to study the foot of the tree before her eyes stopped on Caesar, and then on the female besides him. Despite the obvious controversy Haley built towards Cornelia from undignified jealousy, she couldn't help but smile her way, which Cornelia returned with the usual charm. Haley might like Caesar, but she was happy he found a wife as kind as the one he had - one that is also as outspoken and cheeky. "You wanted to see me?" Haley questioned finally and shifted her gaze back to Caesar while Maurice sat down on one of the tree roots next to his leader and friend. To her surprise, however, Cornelia was the one who stood and shuffled over to her. Without a word or sound, the beautiful ape pulled something out of what seemed to be thin air before she placed it in Haley's arms. The fur barely wrapped around Haley's arms before she was bestowed with a pleasant heat. She stared at Cornelia for a few moments, looking nothing but perplexed, before she forced her brown hues onto the soft surface in her arms, making them widen instantly. It didn't take Haley even a second to recognize the silky black pelt as the Black Bear that she killed the previous week. Dumbfounded, she maneuvered the skin around and held it up in front of her, her awe only inflating when the shape of the object unveiled itself – the arms, the collar, and the chest. She hesitated before she slipped her arm in, then the next, and hugged the thick-furred coat around her body, and then sighed with delight as the warmth enveloped her. There were areas that seemed smaller and others that seemed bigger than they needed to be, but taking into account that the thread was made from only god knows what, Haley was impressed by the fact that it looked as good as it did.

Haley got ready to ask Caesar who made it, but as soon as her awe-struck gaze fell on him, he gibbered in amusement and nodded back to Cornelia, allowing Haley to gape at her instead and for the ape to grow what Haley could only discern as bashful. She even looked down to find Cornelia shifting on her feet, albeit faintly. Chuckling at the sight, Haley quickly wrapped her arms around Cornelia, and she didn't let go, even when the female flinched in her hold. Hugging wasn't exactly something that apes partook in very often, but Haley wasn't about to let go. The sickly weight on her shoulders lifted as her clashing feelings about Cornelia faded into a liking - this gift was like Cornelia welcoming her to the village, and eventually, arms wrapped around Haley, too. "Thank you. I appreciate it." Haley breathed, the admiration for Cornelia's kindness clear enough to make Cornelia gibber happily, even if only to get interrupted by a fit of disgusted hoots. Haley broke away and whisk around to scowl at the familiar ape.

 _"_ _Like always, human lies,"_  Koba signed in response to her look, scowling right back with an animalistic growl,  _"and now dresses to look like ape."_  Haley could feel Caesar getting ready to scold Koba for his words, but Haley beat him to it—

"I did not lie!" She snapped, "I'm grateful for this coat more than anything, because now I won't freeze to death!"

 _"_ _But human hates who it came from."_  He snapped back with jerky movements, too mad to sign smoothly. Haley's breath hitched immediately when she realized Caesar and Cornelia must have read his words as well, and she felt her anxiety grow. "Koba." Maurice warned aloud - he was the only one who knew what was going on, having eavesdropped on Koba and Haley back when Koba called her out on her affections, but Koba didn't seem to care.

"I do not." Haley protested harshly when she recovered from the sudden blow. She didn't even notice Maurice's attempt to help - not with the tension between her and Cornelia almost burning through the back of her new coat under the female's stare. "Unlike you, I don't judge others for my own faults!" She yelled finally, " **One thought does not a villain make!** "

"Haley." Caesar warned instead, and when he saw Koba bare his teeth and step closer to the girl, he finally rose from his seat atop the tree roots and demanded their attention with a bark.  _"What is this about?"_ He signed furiously _._ But not even his bark seemed to have been enough to break Haley from her seething rage. She didn't even see Caesar sign for an explanation. Thus, she just tisked in annoyance and slipped pass Koba, giving him a well-deserved shove with her shoulder before making her way down the hill in brisk steps. She was more excited than ever to leave the village on her annual trip to the waterfall, and now that she has a coat to warm her up afterwards, she had every intention of finally bathing in its freezing but soothing waters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If ya'll want, please go check my YouTube Channel: Geeky Fanatic. I definitely recommend it if you're a Transformers fan!


	14. A Lie and the Admittance of Defeat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Haley finally had a coat so she can wash the last few years away and not get sick, but nature has this way of balancing itself out, even with something as simple as relaxation and bliss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, here is the graphic content I have warned you all about.   
> ALERT!   
> ALERT!

It was a mixture of pure bliss and heaven as Haley stepped into the waterfall. She didn't care that clean skin left her bruises, scars, and scrapes visible; she was overjoyed to finally feel her flesh relieved of its sweaty and sticky surface, and although her hair was still damaged and hard, she was glad to see its yellowish white tint for the first time in years. For a moment, all her troubles felt as if they had been washed away, allowing a relaxed sigh to brush pass her chapped lips. She basked in the wondrous feeling that the water created and waited until a cold breeze begun to nip at her skin before she felt persuaded enough to put her coat back on, in order to regain some heat for her unclothed body. With her old clothing tied to the riverbank by a rope while the powerful streams attempted to wash the material clean, the leathery interior of the coat was slightly revolting, but Haley quickly got used to it. She didn't dare to think about her squabble with Koba while she sat down on the rocks of the riverbank, looking like nothing more than a ball of fur with a head as she curled up underneath the Black Bear's pelt.

Nevertheless, “think of the devil, he shall appear.”

When something suddenly crunched behind her, Haley nearly jumped out of her and the bear’s skin in shock before she quickly spun around on her bum to defend herself, but when she saw it was Koba, the alarm vanished. Haley simply rolled her eyes and pulled the coat closer protectively, not wanting her state exposed. "Oh, what is it this time?" She muttered his way, completely oblivious to the fact that Koba was initially sent there against his will to apologize. Then again, if she had known, there was still only a slight chance she would be treating him better, "Come to get all up in my face with your disgusting one, or are you just here to look for a fight in any way possible, just to satisfy your deplorable needs?

Watching his face contort in anger from her vocal jab made pride swell in her chest, but in one dreaded statement, her inflated pride was punctured, kicked, tossed aside, and ground into dirt. "Told Caesar." He signed and watched as her face paled.

"Told h-him what?" She questioned with feigned disinterest. She already knew what he was talking about, but she was willing to hope she was wrong. Unfortunately, she was not fooling herself or Koba - she was just annoying him.

"Told Caesar about human's feelings." He snapped without saying a word, his silent smugness disappearing underneath bubbling frustration, "He said human must leave."

"Liar!" She protested without a moment's hesitation and threw herself back to her feet to level with the cruel ape. Even if only literally, Haley wasn’t going to allow for Koba to look down a her, which allowed for her to go blind to her coat barely hiding what needs to be hidden from his prying eyes. She couldn't believe that Caesar would ever say such a thing, not after how much they've been through together. Nevertheless, because of the fear, guilt, and uncertainty she's been carrying in her heart since the moment she realized her feelings, Koba's every word stabbed, leaving her to wonder if Caesar did actually want her to leave in response to finding out the truth, with degust compelling his choice.  
"Human thought ape accept!?" He questioned with an ear-pitching and apish screech, which didn't really hit as far home as his words seemed to, "Ape and ape, human and human; how it should be."  
"Shut up already!" She simply continued to deny his words from reality, shaking her head furiously. She couldn't believe his words - she just couldn't bring herself to, "Can't you, for once, just get lost!?"  
"Koba will when human leave Caesar." He finalized, grunting approvingly at his own conclusion, "Like Caesar wants!"

"That's it!"

Haley finally had enough, her anger and pain tipping over and spouting like a volcano in an instant, all of his taunting and tormenting mashing together in a single thought. She leaped for the figure in front of her, and her muscular frame actually managed to tackle Koba to the ground for some time. "Always saying the exact thing you think would hurt me," She yelled, fighting against his thrashing beneath her and doing everything she could to land a few punches of her own, causing the occasional blow to his rubbery and scarred face. Not for the first time, years of swinging from trees was paying off, and not in the way she ever expected it to, "Treating me like garbage - no, worse than garbage - like garbage that's been eaten and shat back out - garbage that looks like you!" For one final punch, she rose her fist to her crazed eyes, baring her teeth like the animal below her, but before she even had the chance, the air was knocked from her frail lungs in one impossibly powerful kick that sent her body flying through the air like she weighed nothing. Her startled cry was cut short when her form splashed back into the river, her head colliding with the stone bottom in a hollow crack, drawing just a prickle of blood from her skull that quickly dispersed into the clear liquid drowning her.

Haley barely had time to struggle against the stream in her daze, however, before five strong fingers latched harshly onto her hair and jerked her back to the water's surface, earning another pained cry from her lips. Through her lightheadedness, she pointlessly scratched at Koba's hand to be released while she was dragged to the riverbank, but in no time at all, she was tossed, face-first, back onto the rocks. The ragged and solid corners of the earth cut easily into her delicate skin and allowed pain to steal her focus. She barely registered another apish and frightening bark before she felt Koba's foot press down on the back of her neck, forcing the side of her face to squish against the solid surface with an exhausted whimper. It was pure adrenaline and fear that kept her thrashing determinedly under his weight. But just one more loud scream from him and she halted in her efforts, submitting to his rage. Koba slammed her face down one last time before he stepped away, holding himself high in his victory. After a few arrhythmic breaths, Haley realized that victory was exactly what he had - victory over everything she still had left. Her body physically throbbed at the thought - or maybe it was just her wounds - but that didn’t change the truth.

"Congratulations," She croaked, shakily pushing herself onto her hands and knees, and coughed a few droplets of water from her lungs before she continued, "you won - you just defeated a lowly human." She knew that her admittance of defeat - or rather, her way of admitting defeat - would only antagonize Koba more, but she didn't care. After all, she wasn't lying. She felt utterly defeated; her entire world felt as if it was no different than the droplets of water that were falling from her hair and shattering against the stones underneath her. Just as she expected, her words hit the ape hard, and, not even a second later, an enraged growl echoed and her body was flung through the air yet again. This time, only a faint yelp escaped her when she fell on her back against the stones farther away, her drenched coat protecting her back from suffering the same damage as the rest of her. A single groan escaped her once the world settled, but when she moved to get up, Koba's figure suddenly loomed over her and his powerful hands pressing her tired wrists down beside her head, keeping her from continuing. Furious, he screamed a few inches from her face, his canines almost scratching against her nose.

Nevertheless, Haley didn't feel scared - she lay bare in front of the one ape that wanted her dead and didn’t so much as blink, because she had nothing to lose. If she survived, she'd have to leave the village and be on her own again, so what was there for her? She didn’t want to go back to that life. She **_couldn’t_ ** go back to that life. Whatever strength she had would get sucked dry if she had to live in the city again. "Go ahead and kill me," she egged him on, relaxing her entire body against the stones and shutting her eyes in a strange willfulness to death. It wasn’t peace, but it wasn’t fear either - it was just a white flag to fate. "But tell me, as an ape who'd tell me the truth no matter how cruel it may be," she continued, her small voice breaking as she clenched her fists so tight they shook from the pressure, "in another life, would it have been possible for Caesar, an ape, to have found me worthy, even if just a little?"

Even Koba couldn't help but soften his demanding physique at her words, his entire body seeming to calm at the defeat in her voice, and when she didn't even fight back when he let his guard down, his pity unintentionally grew. Something about what she said made his scowl fade and left him watching her, wondering. He didn’t know what he was wondering, but it kept him from moving. He couldn’t bring himself to budge. He merely stared down at her for a long, silent span of time. Only later, when her words truly sink in, another type of anger grew within him: an anger of being foiled. Koba knew, if he killed her now, there would be no satisfaction and no victory, because that's exactly what she wanted. Haley wanted to die and be put out of her misery. There’d be no point to it. But then, when his single seeing eye skimmed over her exhausted, gasping, and nude body, his anger was replaced with something else - something he didn’t understand and something he didn’t want. His gaze traveled over the black fur that wrapped around her arms and legs like the skin of an ape and his thoughts drifted to her second question again, ‘ _would it have been possible for Caesar, an ape, to have found me worthy?_ ’ What about it made his insides feel so stiff and painful? He watched as the water from the stream trickled down the hairless skin on Haley’s neck as if it was even smoother than the leaves the apes had tied to the huts. What about this made him crave so badly to-

Haley gasped when the wet warmth of a tongue unexpectedly glided across her neck, licking it slowly. Haley’s skin spread in goose bumps at the foreign feeling, but she kept her mouth shut and kept herself from making any more sounds, not knowing what Koba was trying to do - he could be slicing her throat any moment now. Only when wet fur suddenly went flush against her body, did she involuntarily whimper in fear. Too close – way too close. It almost hurt how loud her heart thundered. Koba's heavy and sturdy frame pressed down against her chest, on top of her stomach, and between her legs, drowning her in a terrifying heat, but again, she told herself that this time - this time - she was going to keep quiet and wait for the inevitable. Surely, he was going to get it over with soon, but her mind raced to figure out how he was going to go about it. Her resolve to figure out his plan solely faltered when his dry and harsh lips brushed across her chest and his tongue licked at her bleeding cuts. It was then when Haley understood what was happening, but for some reason, she simply looked away and shut her eyes as tightly as she could, attempting to block him out.

Finally, Haley knew exactly what was coming, but in her mind, she didn’t have to power to stop Koba from doing anything he wanted to do to her, oblivious to the fact that Koba felt a lack of control as well. Haley only kept laying there, limp and worn out - her body refused to fight back. She convinced herself to think just this once, so she'd be able to know what one night with Caesar would have been like. She needed to keep sane through this somehow. She told herself, once would be enough to hate it and to realize that Caesar is an ape and it would have been impossible to be together.

But as everything kept dragging on and as two strong arms begun to hold her small body down without mercy or grace, littering her body in more bruises, scratches, and bite-marks, she cursed herself with the truth: she knew Caesar would never have held her like that. Caesar would have been gentle and kind, and he would have made sure that she went unscathed.  
 _Strange_ , she realized, _just when she finally cleaned the surface of her body, she was darkened on the inside to the point of no return_ \- she really was disgusting.


	15. The Messenger of Truth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ALERT!! Even more graphic content!! All of it's written in italics!

Dead – Haley's empty and emotionless eyes stared at the river without any focus, her clothing long-since dried and wrapped back around her body, though her coat was still dangling from a tree and dripping dry. With shaky hands, Haley pulled her crystallized blonde hair away from her neck and picked a single arrow from the stone next to her, raising it to the damaged locks. With a single, swift flick of her wrist, a rip-like sound echoed over the waterfall's thrashing waters, her hand opening to allow the loose strands to fly with the breeze before eventually discarding themselves into the stream. Each slice made the memory of Koba’s touch flash back to her notice, like the slap of a flame or a rusted knife to her heart. Her skin was swollen and dark pink from how long she had spent trying to scrub away the evidence of what she had done.

  _Grunts and groans vibrated over the beautiful scenery of a waterfalls and bright green vegetation, consisting of an intermingled mess of Haley and Koba’s voices. Koba, directed by a strange burning in his lower stomach, had stolen Haley’s innocence, and he was starting to understand what this burning was. On its own, Haley's back arched underneath him, pressing up against his muscular frame. He thrusts into her with a power that left her body sore and it made her crave the faint softness of his fur; the apish strength with which Koba moved was almost too much for her small body to handle, but for reasons she couldn't comprehend, the more he lost himself, the louder her moans grew. It had to have been the reaction to the pain._

 Another bundle of locks fell into the river as Haley squeezed her eyes tightly, hoping the darkness of her eyelids would be enough to blind her from the past - it wasn’t.

  _Haley wiggled and tugged her aching wrists for Koba to let go of them, so she could hold onto him, but he didn’t even seem to notice. In response, her legs involuntarily wrapped around his waist, holding him closer. He was inside of her - she could feel him move - and the feeling made her head spin. A strange tightness begun to grow deep within her core. Her skin was hot and clammy with her own sweat and an overwhelming satisfaction was starting to overcome her, one that she wanted desperately to deny._

Her shoulders silently shook while she forced herself not to cry, scared that she might collapse if she lost any more strength. Again, she cut another grasp of hair to the middle of her neck, freeing herself of the ugly ends of her locks in some pointless attempt to clean herself from the filth growing inside of her.

_Feeling her holding onto him with such desperation, Koba couldn’t stop himself from finally letting go of her arms and was almost startled by how quickly they wrapped around his neck. Trying to muffle her own sounds, she buried her face into his shoulder and he could feel it affecting something about him, something deep inside. At the time, Koba had liked it. His breaths grew shallow and quick, his trusts becoming faster - more desperate. He wanted to feel her more - feel her closer. Without really knowing what he was doing, Koba wrapped a single arm around her body under the bearskin and hoisted her up from the no-doubt painful rocks, trying to pull her completely against him. Keeping her in the air with an arm and his legs, Haley clung to him with everything she had, and the feeling of every inch of her hairless body pressing against his hairy one made the terrifying fire in him grow stronger. He knew he should have hated the feeling, but something in that moment stopped him from thinking about it._

_Haley was starting to get lost in what she knew had to be pleasure, and while she was held in Koba’s arms like he was just a man and not a human or an ape, the hope she had to become disgusted by the idea of being with Caesar was shattered. Confusion overtook Haley when she realized he didn’t feel animalistic – not his touches, albeit a bit rough, not his technique, not their positions, and not his caresses, though that was pointless after how he hurt her every other second. It was nothing more than a male holding a female. Call her crazy, but Haley’s fear pictured something completely different in her head – “wildly different” being the best way to describe it. Not even the sight of him skulking away afterwards prickled her wrong. Though, through the daze of an orgasm, Haley thought she spotted an invisible weight hanging on his broad shoulders._

That was the one thing she hated the most about what Koba had done to her: he made her so much more confused. Was it because of how the apes advanced that he held her like he did? Was it their ‘awakening’ that made it feel as if he and she didn’t just go against nature itself?

 Growling at herself for even daring to think such a thing, she shook her head violently and rose the arrow in a fit of anger, ready to toss it away while only half of her hair cut. Just in time, however, a deep and familiar coo interrupted her, the sound allowing her to relax instantly. With a gentle touch that she didn't even realize she craved, she felt a hand wrap around her own before the arrow was delicately pulled from her fingers, her arm collapsing at her side as soon as it was freed. Her head lowered in some failed attempt to hide her shame from the newcomer. Gratefully, she didn't say nor did she need to say a word to Maurice as he sat down behind her and continued the work on her hair. Only after what felt like an hour passed, when he was forced to shuffle around her to cut her bangs, did he break the silence in his own, apish way – if only he chose his words better.

 "Was worried when human gone too long. Ask why human smells like Koba?" He signed carefully before continuing with her hair, as if trying to express how she didn't have to answer if she didn't want to – he was just worried. Naturally, she took the latter option and openly changed the subject.

 "What are you doing here?" She asked hoarsely, her words barely loud enough for him to hear, even with his senses being more advanced than a human's, "Every ape in the village probably knows by now and I don't think they'd be too happy with you coming here."

 "Apes know what?" He simply questioned in return before he cut the last piece of her hair and he slumped down entirely in front of her. The stones did not seem to bother him at all and he merely tilted his head her way curiously. Yet again, confusion set in on Haley, compelling her to frown at the orangutan, but with it, a sense of dread begun to creep in on her. "My feelings for Caesar." She spoke slowly and hesitantly, almost as if afraid to hear his response, "Koba said..."

 "Only Koba and I know." He denied with a small shake of his large head and a worried grumph.

"B-But Koba... he came here to tell me that Caesar explicitly told me to leave because he found out..." She breathed, the dread growing larger and pushing the truth to the surface. _No_ , she screamed inwardly, _don't tell me_ —

 "Koba was sent to apologize after said he misunderstood what human said to him," Maurice continued to explain, "Koba lied and said Koba didn't mean H—"

 An enraged cry cut him off before he had the chance to finish, Haley snapping right there in front of him, and by the time he had the opportunity to stop her from leaving, she already sped back into the forest. In a blur, she swiped her bow and arrows from the ground and her coat from the trees, tossing the dark pelt back onto her shoulders before she disappeared into the trees. Maurice’s hope of catching her disappearing as her swinging form disappeared into the distance. With fury and adrenaline pumping through Haley's body like magma, the incessant stinging between her legs was dismissed to unimportance, her aching body no longer even registering in her crazed thought:

  _Koba's dead!_

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Remember to show the love if you liked it, subscribe if you want to follow my updates, and comment to keep me motivated. ;)


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